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The Clearwater Public Library's summer reading program for kids began at the end of May. The program is meant to help children continue to read and work on skills for when school begins in August.

Library Director Kathy Feusse also created activities to keep the 45 participating kids entertained as well.

"Normally, the program offers a fun social time with their friends and allows them to explore a theme and do activities based on that theme," Feusse said. "This year is going to offer them some activities that they can do and learning how to entertain yourself a little bit more while not being so reliant on internet."

Feusse normally follows the American Library Association's summer reading program but due to COVID-19, the library decided not follow this year's theme. Instead, Feusse has created activity bags that are split into four different age groups and will be distributed to the children's parents every other week through June and July.

Each bag is filled with a variety of activities for the individual age groups. A mix of crafts, science experiments, recipes, games and reading links can be found in the bags. With each grade level, the content in the bags becomes more advanced in order to stay age appropriate and fun for each kid. A reading log and activity bingo are also included in the bags for participants to try and earn tickets for a prize at the end of the summer.

Tickets are earned upon completion of activities on the bingo sheet included in the activity bags. At the end of the summer, participants return the sheet to Feusse, the amount of activities completed equal the amount of tickets earned for prizes.

Kids can decide which of the five prizes they would like to put their tickets towards, they can also split up tickets for the prizes anyway they like. Reader Zone is a reading app that will track the user's progress and can also be used to gain tickets. Tickets are earned when signing up for the app and also at different levels of completion.

"It's not too late to sign up your child for the summer reading program," Feusse said.

Parents can contact Feusse at 402-485-2034 with questions about the program and for activity bag pickup.